How will be the future of AI

Today, technology is at the forefront of every business and customers are using it innovatively to create new models of business to serve the world and stay ahead of the competitors. New-age technologies like 5G, Edge Computing, AI, ML, Cloud and Data Analytics are creating new opportunities and paving the way for seamless digital transformation. During these turbulent pandemic times, many organisations have been forced to re-think and re-architect their workplace environments in order to cater for their growing remote workforce. Whether it's developing a BYOD program, re-establishing remote connectivity to core IT services such as email, or developing new security capabilities for additional needed visibility – the cloud has played a pivotal role in speeding up value realisation in these organisational initiatives.

Online advertising was one of the most adversely affected industries by the global pandemic. The first half (1H) of 2020 witnessed a major slip in revenue figures for advertising giants such as Facebook and Google as brands cut down their marketing spend by as much as 30%. Whilst the cloud has provided the much-needed turbo boost in delivering these capabilities, it also has introduced new unforeseen challenges that many organisations hadn't originally considered. Such challenges include inadvertent side and back channels into these cloud environments that now present additional attack patterns and thus risk into the organisation. The most important concern is business leaders fundamentally need to look at their data strategy and innovation pathway.

Secondly, the current environment has accelerated the pace of digital transformation and technology is enabling businesses to be futuristic at a rate much faster than ever imagined. This is an opportunity for organisations to drive innovation and build a world of tomorrow. It is the right time for every OEM to help businesses to redefine and transform their business models to be future-ready.

The fact is we still don’t have enough data-minded leaders at the C-suite level to drive organizations on the right data journey. There’s a lot more at stake for businesses who don’t act; from operations to sales, customer engagement, revenue and profitability. Those that can monetize data and convert these into assets will thrive. Those that don’t will get left behind. A mindset change is needed - leaders must accept and embrace an agile culture of experimentation if they are to achieve data activation. There are significant shifts continuing from in-person, brick and mortar shopping to online shopping. Online retailers will need to continue to invest in creative and innovative customer experiences, to capture revenue and offset lost sales from in-person shopping. To survive and grow in these rapidly changing times, it is essential for retailers to embrace new ways of interacting with their customers and driving their operations.

There is a need for urgency of knowing Data visibility and the management of data protection is the most important cybersecurity imperative for enterprises in the next year. These new patterns are here to stay, and we must do our best to introduce resiliency, security and visibility into our efforts. As part of this, we must address the elephant in the room. Data loss is damaging to business, and in order to stop that loss, we need to know exactly where our data is, on a minute-by-minute basis. That means we must introduce real-time (or near real-time!) user activity monitoring. We should be monitoring to prevent data loss: not productivity tracking. Transparency in the roll-out of these solutions and the careful consideration of user privacy should be at the heart of any user activity monitoring solutions.